


Two Birds

by DeckofDragons



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Light Angst, M/M, Post Killing Two Birds, Post Violence, Pre-Relationship, discotrain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeckofDragons/pseuds/DeckofDragons
Summary: Trying to kill Hat Kid can't be the only thing they collaborate on, can it?
Relationships: The Conductor/DJ Grooves (A Hat in Time)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 109





	Two Birds

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a thought I had while grinding away at the Killing Two Birds Death Wish that also led to my head canon about the EX fights being made possible by a potion Snatcher concocted. It makes people who drink it, blood thirsty, faster, stronger, and tougher, leaving them drained and essentially hung over. I finally got around to writing it too.

The _one_ thing DJ Grooves and the Conductor had managed to work together on without getting at each other’s throats was trying to kill a _kid_. Yes, they’d been forced to under threat of their souls being devoured and the potion Snatcher had given them to ‘toughen them up a bit’ had made even _thinking_ about not wanting to kill the kid nigh on impossible but… that didn’t make it excusable, did it?

Grooves still felt bad enough about the first time he’d tried to kill her – he hadn’t _really_ been trying it to kill her though, he’d just wanted the Time Piece, his desire for it had clouded his mind a bit, okay maybe a lot. So, he should’ve tried harder to refuse, right? … Too late now though. His only solace really was that she’d won again, despite all odds, beating them both. How? He couldn’t really remember, the time between when he’d taken the potion and woken up in his dressing room was little more than a blur. It felt more like remembering a dream than something that actually happened. But the aches and pains all over his body as well as the general feeling of being drained of all energy attested to the truth of those foggy memories.

Looking at himself in his dressing room mirror made him flinch. His clothing and hair were disheveled and one of the lenses in his stylish sunglasses was cracked. There was also quite the ugly bruise forming on his face about the size of a kid’s umbrella tip, a particularly hard hit, especially for a kid, no doubt. There’d be no hiding the fact that he’d been in a fight until it healed.

With a grunt and ignoring the all over pain and exhaustion, he put the cracked glasses to the side and grabbed a spare. He tried to fix himself up a bit more, straighten his jacket and fix his hair but soon gave up, he was too exhausted to really care much.

When he exited the dressing room, the penguins milling around conversing amongst themselves froze as they turned to look at him. They immediately looked away but none of them resumed their conversations, they were all too busy paying attention to him, wanting to know what he would do next. They’d all witnessed the fight, or if not, knew about it from their buddies who had. Grooves should say something to them, right? Explain himself. But… how?

“Uh… there’s no need to stick around,” was what he said instead. “I don’t think we’re going to be doing anymore shooting today.” Possibly not tomorrow either with how _awful_ Grooves felt, heck maybe not even the day after.

“What do you want us to do with the footage of the fight Boss?” one them asked.

“You… filmed that?”

“The Snatcher told us to.” Why though? What would Snatcher want with that footage? Did he request a copy for himself too? Possibly for blackmail? … It didn’t really matter though, did it? The fight had been filmed, with how this studio typically ran, someone would have a copy somewhere by now. There'd be no fully eradicating the evidence of the fight even if Grooves tried.

“Put it in my dressing room,” he said, gesturing back towards it. “I’ll… look at it later.” _See_ what he’d actually done and how the kid had won. It might make for a good movie scene if they could spin it as fiction. … Ugh, did he _really_ just have that thought?

“You got it Boss.” The penguins saluted before moving on to do as he’d told them.

With a sigh, Grooves moved on too. He didn’t know where he was going until he ended up crossing over into the Conductor’s side of the studio. He ignored the owls’ looks and murmuring to each other as he passed them, headed for the Conductor’s dressing room. Normally when he came over here, at least one of them would gather up the nerve to ask him what he was doing, not this time though. He marched right up to the Conductor’s dressing room door and knocked.

“Who is it and what you want?” came the muffled reply from within.

“It’s Grooves, I want to talk.”

“Eh? What for?”

“Just… can I come in?”

There were a few seconds of silence before the Conductor replied. “Fine, if you must.”

Grooves opened the door and stepped in, pulling it closed behind him. He was unsurprised by the state of the room. The desk was a mess of papers, most of them probably important. Empty whiskey bottles littered the floor around the trashcan – the ones that had missed but how many had there been total – which explained why the room smelled like alcohol.

The Conductor sat at his table, nursing another bottle of whiskey. He looked about as disheveled and exhausted as Grooves. Jacket buttons mostly undone, tie half untied, clothing just wrinkled in general, made worse by how much his shoulders slumped.

Grooves sat across from him. “Are you sure you should be drinking right now? After whatever was in that potion,” and how it was making them feel now, “that might not be a…”

“I’ll do whatever I pecking want,” the Conductor interrupted. “Now what do you want to talk about? It better be important, I ain’t in the mood for small talk.”

“Uh… it was filmed. I told the penguins to put it in my dressing room but there might be copies.” Probably were.

“ _That’s_ what you’re pecking concerned about?” The Conductor slammed his bottle down on the table, hard enough to make the whole thing rattle. “We tried to kill the little lass and _that’s_ what you’re worried about? Though… I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, you did try to kill her all on your own too. And all this time, I thought you were better than that.”

Grooves flinched. He… couldn’t make a comeback to that. “I… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, you peck-neck, apologize to the lass.”

“Yeah, I know.” He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to seek her out and talk to her though, especially after this second fight. “But, I just want to say I _never_ wanted to hurt her, not _really_. The Time Piece just… messed with my head, that’s all. You saw what they did to that Mustache Girl, right?”

The Conductor grunted. “I suppose. But is that all you wanted? To warn me about the footage and to make excuses for yourself?”

“No, I… I uh…” _What_ did he want? Well… “I don’t want our only collaboration to be _that_.” They’d been working in the same studio for years, friendly rivals at first and then _not_ so friendly rivals after the Conductor’s wife and daughter died. In the beginning they’d tried a few times to collaborate, their drastically different visions had clashed though, leading to the projects failing before they were even half done. They’d eventually agreed to just stay on their separate sides of the studio and only work together on paying the bills. But now they _had_ worked on something together and that something was not what Grooves wanted to define their relationship.

The Conductor raised an eyebrow as he studied Grooves for a few seconds in silence. What he might be thinking, it was impossible to guess, but he wasn’t getting mad or immediately saying ‘no’ so that had to be good, right? “You’re saying, you want to make a movie together?” he finally said.

“Doesn’t have to be a movie, just _something_. Right now, the only thing we’ve managed to do together and _not_ get in a yelling match over, is… trying to kill the little girl. Yeah, we were forced to and the potion made it hard for us to have different views but… I don’t want that to be the only thing. I don’t want the only thing out there that’s the result of a collaboration between us to be the footage of that fight.”

“Hmmm… well, you got a point, I guess. So… fine, after we apologize to the lass, _you_ especially, we’ll work on something together. Or try to, it’ll probably just fall apart again.”

“I guess we’ll see about that.” As long as they tried, right?

“You want a drink?” The Conductor held the whiskey bottle towards him, offering to share.

Normally Grooves didn’t drink much but… he felt like he could a sip or two right now. Just enough to numb the pain a bit, as long as he didn’t drink too much it would _probably_ be fine. So, he accepted. “Thanks,” he said before taking a hearty swing. It burned throat, making him cough as he handed the bottle back, it felt good too in a way. And sharing a bottle was a good first step in foraging a proper friendship, or at least better working relationship, right? Maybe they’d actually accomplish something of value together.

**Author's Note:**

> I maybe, might continue this and write about their collab project and eventual falling for each other. If enough people are interested and I find the time to.


End file.
